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PORTRAIT AND DATA 



OF 



UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEW 
JERSEY AND PRESIDENT OF THE 
PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY 
OF AMERICA. 



Rational Newspaper 
18iograpt)ie0 



H COMPILED FOR NEWSPAPER REFERENCE BY THE ft 

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23 PARK ROW, NEW YORK, U. S. A. 



JOHN FAIRFIELD DRYDEN 



United States Senator From New Jersey and President of the Prudential 
Insurance Company of America. 



THOUGH John Fairfield Dryden, born at Farmington, Me., on August 7, 1839. 
ultimately chose a business career, with life insurance as his chief specialty, he 
was university-bred and early in his college career contemplated ^igal pro- 
fession. His ancestry was of a cultivated and refined stock, reaching back 
through New England to Northamptonshire, in England, where its most eminent 
representative. John Dryden, attained a permanent and world-wide celebrity as one of the 
best of the Poets-Laureate. These various influences — the literary strain of the Dryden 
family, the liberal education at Yale, the early legal training, and the business activity of 
maturer years — have combined to make Senator Dryden a broad-minded, many-sided man, 
well informed on an unusual number of important subjects, and have given him a large- 
ness of mental scope and a judicial and executive force possessed by very few men. 

The subject of Life Insurance early engaged Mr. Dryden's attention, and he devoted 
his time to a study of its principles, mastering the theory of finance, the construction of 
tables, averages, percentages, futurities and scientific monetary economy. About 1865 he 
obtained a report on the subject of Industrial Insurance, submitted to the Massachusetts 
Legislature by Professor Elizur Wright, then State Insurance Commissioner. It criticised 
the methods of the Prudential Assurance Company (Limited) of London, England. 

Mr. Dryden procured all the reports of the company and analyzed them, and decided 
that the Insurance Commissioner was wrong. This gave him the idea of formulating an 
Industrial Insurance system foV the United States ; so, in 1873, ne visited Newark, and 
interested such men as Noah F. Blanchard, William H. Murphy, father of Governor Murphy ; 
Horace Ailing, Leslie D. Ward, and others. A bill was passed by the New Jersey Legis- 
lature, and in 1875 The Prudential Insurance Company of America was founded. From 
its inception Mr. Dryden was the soul and spirit of the enterprise. For several years he 
was its Secretary, and when Noah F. Blanchard. the President, retired, Mr. Dryden suc- 
ceeded him, and the Prudential, as every one knows, has grown to be one of the leading 
life insurance companies of the world, under the able leadership of President Dryden, with 
assets of over $60,000,000 and an annual income of $33,000,000. 

In 1875, when Senator Dryden organized The Prudential Insurance Company of 
America, a small office force adequately accommodated the transaction of its business, but 
now accommodations have to be provided for over 1.300 Clerks, Managers, Inspectors, 
Medical Directors and other officials. As the Company's Agents, Doctors and Home Office 
employees now amount to over 20,000, it will be seen that Senator Dryden is a leader of 
a vast army of active workers. 

The Prudential, under Senator Dryden's direction, has erected three handsome office 
buildings, which, together with the mammoth building formerly occupied by the Com- 
pany and its new extension, make a group of structures solely devoted to business purposes, 
said to be unequalled in any part of the world. 



Mr. Dryden is also interested largely in the Fidelity Trust Company of Newark (of 
which he was one of the originators). He is also one of the organizers of the new 
$25,000,000 Public Service Corporation, which practically controls all the trolley, electric 
light and power and gas companies in the northern section of New Jersey, and is likewise 
interested in the North Jersey Street Railway Company and the South Jersey Gas, Electric 
and Traction Company, subsidiary systems. He has recently been made a Director of the 
famous United States Steel Corporation, and is rapidly moving to the front rank among 
the leading financiers of the country. 

In politics Mr. Dryden has been a Republican all his life, and has taken an active 
interest in his party's affairs. In 1896 he was one of the New Jersey Republican Electors, 
and served again in that capacity in 1900 When the term of United States Senator 
Smith, of New Jersey, expired, Mr. Dryden was put forward as a candidate for the seat, 
but he made no effort to attain it. Engrossed with business affairs, he had shown no 
desire for public office, though, as before stated, he was always keenly alive to party 
interests. But on January 29, 1902, the Legislature of New Jersey, in accordance with the 
spontaneous choice of the State, elected Mr. Dryden to fill the five year unexpired term 
of Senator William J. Sewell, deceased, and he could not refuse the honor thus thrust upon 
him. 

As a Senator, Mr. Dryden has won golden opinions from his constituents, the general 
verdict being that New Jersey never had a more efficient representative in the halls of 
Congress. He secured for a New Jersey shipyard the construction of one of the largest of 
the government's new cruisers, and he has enriched the State's Treasury of New Jersey 
by nearly six hundred thousand dollars, interest due to the State from the Federal govern- 
ment on unpaid Civil War claims. 

Notwithstanding his constant and unwearying devotion to business affairs, Senator 
Dryden has always kept fresh and bright his love for literature and the fine arts, and his 
fondness for domestic and social life. He has large and valuable libraries in his Newark 
and Bernardsville homes. He generally spends an hour or two daily among his favorite 
authors and the current publications of the day. In the fine arts his particular fancy is 
for paintings, in which line he is an acknowledged connoisseur. He owns a large number 
of beautiful and valuable paintings, mostly of famous artists, and he is constantly adding to 
the collection. 

Senator Dryden's home life is ideal. An atmosphere of perfect congeniality and mutual 
affection pervades the entire family circle, and although Mr. and Mrs. Dryden are fond 
of society, in the usual acceptation of that term, and naturally take a prominent part in 
society matters, they are fonder still of quiet home pleasures, and Mr. Dryden enjoys noth- 
ing better than a pleasant evening in the company of his wife, his son, Mr. Forrest F. 
Dryden, and wife ; his daughter and son-in-law. Colonel and Mrs. Anthony R. Kuser, and 
his three grandchildren. 

In demeanor Senator Dryden is dignified, yet kindly and courteous. In mental ability 
he is equalled by few of the men who have attained, like him, great success in life, and few 
men are equal to the great burdens and responsibilities that Mr. Dryden has borne for years, 
and which he bears lightly. It may be added that the Senator is one of the State Committee 
for New Jersey to raise funds for a memorial to the late President McKinley, at Canton, 
Ohio, and he is a steady and generous contributor to religious and charitable objects. 



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